I am an old, fat guy, and retired from the military after 25 years. My neighbor got a pit bull about 3 years ago, and never having been around pit bulls, and knowing the neighbor was not the best dog owner (had given up 3 dogs in the two years we lived across the street from him), I asked if I could walk the dog in the mornings. The offer was not altruistic though, because I was nervous about having a pit in the neighboorhood and figured walking with it would help socialize it to me and others in the neighborhood. I really enjoyed the dog, and she was a great walking buddy for about 6 months. Eventually, the dog was sold or given away - I was not offered the dog, or I likely would have taken her.

My wife and I were discussing getting our own dog after I retired from the Army, and that was about 6 months after I stopped walking the neighbors dog (we had a miniture Poodle years ago). I went down to a local shelter and rescued a Shar Pei/Lab mix named Tuck. About 6 months later the wife asked me to go get a second dog, for her (Tuck is REALLY attached to me), as well as for a playmate for Tuck. I brought Tuck with me to the shelter I rescued him from, and he played with about 10-12 dogs/puppies and his favorite playmate was Taffy, so we brought home our "Lab/Terrier" mix puppy.

I knew Taffy was not a "Lab/Terrier" but had never seen, and knew nothing about Am Staffs, so I assumed she was some type of small hound/fox terrier mix. I was expecting a 20ish pound dog!

Because of BSL and other issues with Pits on military posts, I really did not want a Pit, and didn't think I had one, but as Taffy grew, I was doing web searches to figure out what she was (mostly). She is a mix (rear hips and tail are wrong for an Am Staff), but is about 50 pounds, 20 inches at the withers, and meets the Am Staff AKC breed description and standards (tail and hip line excepted). She is also an absolute sweetheart!

I train both my dogs with a local AKC affiliated club, and we are in Novice Ralley courses at this time. I have not competed the dogs yet, but both are registered as All American Dogs with the AKC so we can compete in the open class at Rally events.

I don't have pictures online, and have been unable to figure out a work around to post pics of Taffy, so this will have to do for our intro.

Welcome from one military vet to another! So glad to have you and your family. I think you will make a great addition to PBF. Thank you deeply for your service and for choosing to rescue, not only once, but twice! I hope you enjoy it here. There are a few others doing the same sports as you on here. Be sure to snoop around and read the forum rules posted at the top of each section prior to posting. Another Mod should get you approved soon.

If you have pics on your phone, the Tapatalk app is free from the Apple store, or a one time fee from Google Apps. I use both and it makes it easy to surf the forum from your phone and upload pics in a few seconds.